Global agriculture and food systems cannot be truly sustainable without protecting the workers who produce our food. Now, the private industry has a powerful role to play in driving change.

“Our agricultural industry was built on slave labor,” says Rosalinda Guillen, Founder of Community to Community (C2C), a U.S.-based grassroots organization dedicated to food sovereignty and immigrant rights. “A powerful industry was built, and an infrastructure created at every level that would focus on profit, not the rights or benefits for the workers at every level.”

Exploitative roots

Historically, U.S. farmworkers have been excluded from many federal worker rights and benefits. Congress excluded farmworkers from the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, which protects workers who join and organize labor unions. It was not until 1966 that employers were required to pay farmworkers the federal minimum wage, almost 30 years after the Fair Labor Standards Act passed these protections — and still today, federal overtime pay requirements do not cover farmworkers.

“One reason for this is the lack of farmworker-led organizations and unions that can build power in rural America and try to respond to inequitable laws and workplace rules and sometimes deadly exploitative situations,” says Guillen.

The harsh reality

Child labor laws even have different standards for agriculture. For the majority of jobs in the U.S., children can only be legally employed for a restricted number of hours, starting at 14 years old. But in agriculture, children can work for an unlimited number of hours starting at 12 years old.

This issue is not unique to the U.S.—globally, agricultural labor is largely unregulated. The International Labour Organization reports that at least 3 in every 1,000 people in Asia-Pacific are in forced labor, with agriculture among the sectors where it is most prevalent. In Canada, black and brown farmworkers are inextricably tied to their employers, undermining their ability to organize, and making them vulnerable to exploitation.

Conditions are getting worse. Studies have shown that the health impacts of climate change on smallholder farmers—who are working outdoors in extreme conditions like flooding, wildfire smoke, and heat domes—will hamper the realization of many of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. In 2022, the U.S. National Institute of Health reported that farmworkers are 35 times more likely to die from heat than other workers. Outdoor workers’ exposure to hazardous heat is expected to quadruple by 2065.

“Under the combined pressures of climate change and the long-term consolidation in the food system both in the U.S. and globally…farmers and workers on farms struggle to make ends meet economically and in terms of mental and physical health,” says Elizabeth Henderson, co- founder of the Agricultural Justice Project and member of the Northeast Organic Farming Association.

Sustainable consumerism grows

In recent decades, awareness about the connection between food and climate has led to a proliferation of sustainably produced food labels and the popularization of products like Certified Organic. Almost all the major global food and beverage companies have announced ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. According to the New York University Stern Center for Sustainable Business, from 2013 to 2022, products marketed as sustainable grew twice as fast as products not marketed as sustainable.

Now, the same must be done for social sustainability and farmworkers’ rights.

“When you choose what food to buy, you can consciously contribute to the urgent shift from a system based on the cheapest possible food to a solidarity economy based on values of caring, health, and fairness,” says Henderson. “By seeking out products from local farms and small-scale processors, you can help break [long-term consolidation] up and end the death grip that consolidated mega-monsters have on our health, our communities, and the health of our planet.”

Fair Trade flourishes

An increasing number of fair-trade labels and standards work to eliminate forced labor and child labor, improve conditions for workers, and promote gender equity in food-producing regions. Henderson co-founded the Agricultural Justice Project, in particular, which was developed with input from farmworkers and is regulated by organizations that advocate for farmworker rights, like C2C. Experts and advocates also recommend looking for global standard certifications from Fairtrade International, Fair for Life, Equal Exchange, and The Rainforest Alliance.

Those who source food can give voice to farmworkers by increasing the prevalence of these fair-trade labels on store shelves and in school systems, hospitals, and corporate offices. The U.S. government alone spends billions of dollars per year on food, presenting a massive opportunity to require that foods be produced with basic farmworker rights. Alongside climate commitments, grocers and retailers can purchase from producers who are protecting and advancing farmworker rights and justice.

Needless to say, these commitments must be met with global policy changes.

New policies protect producers

There have been major victories in recent years. In 2021, U.S. unions like United Farmworkers and Familias Unidas por la Justicia successfully overturned the exclusion of overtime pay for farmworkers in Washington State. In 2023, the European Union’s reformed Common Agricultural Policy introduced a social pillar, tying subsidies to compliance with minimum social and labor standards. But there is still so much more work to be done.

“If we want to build a truly sustainable food system where workers and land and water are treated well, then we need to rebuild the ways we grow food and distribute our food,” says Guillen.

Protecting our global food supply means protecting those who tend the land and grow our food. Everyone has a critical role to play, especially those with the purchasing power to drive significant change by implementing procurement criteria and advocating for fair labor policies. Together, we can create the food system that future generations deserve.

“Everyone has a critical role to play, especially those with the purchasing power to drive significant change”

Danielle Nierenberg

Danielle Nierenberg is a leading researcher, speaker, and advocate on global food and agriculture. She co-founded the nonprofit Food Tank in 2013, holds an M.S. in Agriculture, Food, and Environment from Tufts University, and served two years in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. She received the Julia Child Award in 2020.

Emily Payne

Emily Payne is editor of the global sustainable food nonprofit Food Tank, a role she has held since 2015. She writes on food, agriculture, climate, and health, with work featured in GreenBiz, Edible Magazines, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Based in Denver, Colorado, she contributes widely to advancing conversations on sustainability and the future of our food system.